Well it is catching up to them because OW failing hard. Also the fact they won’t be giving new content for a year atleast looks pretty defeating to the hardcore people. When echo gets released it will be cool for a moment til she breaks the game even more lol.
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To me having alts and having smurfs are both need to be adressed. The best would be to ban all alt accounts. Not because there could be smurfs between them, because most of the alt accounts are used for:
- Boosting services
- Trying out cheats and bots before marketing them or even before using them on their main account
- Derank or boost them to sel for other players. Mostly for cheaters and smurfs
- And of course for smurfing which you can do more easily than on an account wher your MMR became concrete solid
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I did my placements 2 days ago and was reminded why I never touch competitive.
It’s filled to the brim with smurfs and it’s so frustrating. I don’t know how people who play competitive regularly can tolerate these extremely annoying people.
Most of these smurfs are pretty toxic too because they know if they get banned they can just move to their main account with no punishment for evading bans or suspensions.
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The core problem of detecting smurfs is how do you catch them early on. Different people have different skill levels in regards to games so how do you detect a smurf versus someone who is generally just a natural at the game.
The only real way to detect it is if they are having massive swings in terms of how the game is rating their performance, but even then it would be hard to be sure because some people just have good games. Over time the system could probably detect them, but it would probably take a couple hundred levels to be sure which is the core of the problem.
This would require people to watch replays. This costs money. But there are basic signs of smurfs. Simple one I see. Level 6 McCree. They have ult. They do a long flank behind. They see Zarya used her bubbles. Ult used. A real level 6 person would not do this. This is a smurf in the basic sense.
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They do ruin the games for most of us
Oh hey look at me im diamond and im destroying these noobs in Casuals
Honestly get a life instead of being an Imbecile
Enjoy and game and let others enjoy it
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Are you completely Cajun? Smurfs are a huge problem, especially at the lower ranks. The number of paid boosters out there alone is astonishing. The only way a payed booster and other smurfs function is by INTENTIONALLY THROWING to get to a lower level, they then group up with lower players to carry them (sometimes for money).
Don’t be that simpleton who comes into this thread saying such asinine things.
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And yet as a Bronze player I don’t see the ’ OMG a smurf killed my whole team’ that people are complaining about.
Keep in mind there are exactly 0 complaints about smurfs throwing on the forums and if they were this huge issue that you say they are then those would be everywhere.
As the OP predicted, you clearly don’t understand how smurfs work. LULZ. Your ignorance is showing.
And for the record, I have played against many six stacks that were completely throwing and refused to even take the point or move the cart. I reported them. Nothing happened.
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Smurfs are scum, and you’re scum for defending them and the company that allows it.
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Not defending anything, I’m saying they are not an issue in Overwatch and I stand by that conviction.
Better players in matches is not an issue.
Having multiple accounts is not an issue.
Throwing games is already against the rules and should be reported.
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This is because most “smurfs” are just alts that do their placements and just climb to their main sr over a season or so. They typically will place in gold or plat so you never meet these players. Derankers are much rarer.
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Because people in Bronze often don’t care about it, since you can’t fall from floor. You have to try on purpose to fall to <500 SR, which sometimes called “wood” rank.
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I have a really easy time spoting smurfs. I can even guess their real rank just by playing against them.
I’m still bronze and always will be, though.
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His peak is probably high diamond and you’re a low diamond. Even if they were master, the skill difference so small it doesn’t matter. You’re just mad that you lost.
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What I don’t understand is, and help me out here because neither mathematics nor software development are my fields - How can this not be mitigated by algorithms that run those players’ pure numbers and identify smurfs?
And then, well, smurfing in itself isn’t against the rules, but wouldn’t it be possible to just put smurfs in games with other smurfs?
Oh and de-ranking is against the rules. How do you call that? Is it de-ranking? When someone purposefully throws games so that tey can stay in lower tiers? That I think is against the rules. How can that be not observed and penalized? I mean that activity has to leave a trail of data, right??
The argument against this is new people. The obious filter to do, is to put all low level people in the same game. I always wanted 1-50. And when there’s a OW sale, 1-100. After that, you’re allowed in everything. This damages new people because they’re fighting smurfs. But at the same time. The game is old as dirt. Not many people are new in the first place. There’s an argument for both sides. Than it’s low population. Even with Smurfs. There’s low amount of “new” people to make the Que times do-able.
Hello, I am a GM rank booster, I “help” other Gold / Platinum / Diamond rank players to rank up.
So I can assure you that you are not wrong, in Overwatch there are smurfs / booster / throwers in all games, without exception, even in several games I find some fellow booster and we greet each other.
I tell you this since Overwatch Comp already seems like a complete joke to me lol.
Yes but that would be the point, not to put smurfs into games with new people, but identify them based on their patterns like KDA ratios, weapon accuracy, on fire points, all the things that can show you whether the player is really new or whether it’s just a new account but the player clearly plays at a more advanced level. The point would be to identify those patterns and intervene by taking the smurf out of the general low-level population and putting them into dedicated smurf games.
Then again, players would find out about this after a while, smurfing would go down, and Activision would be selling fewer copies which wouldn’t be very cash money.
I don’t trust AI. POTG can vouch for this.